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README v3.26.4 2026-08-12

Table of contents

1. General
   1.1 Extract the NED package
   1.2 Install the NED package
       1.2.1 Local install
       1.2.2 System install
   1.3 Configure the NED in NSO
2. Optional debug and trace setup
3. Dependencies
4. Sample device configuration
5. Built in live-status actions
6. Built in live-status show
7. Limitations
8. How to report NED issues and feature requests
9. How to rebuild a NED
10. Limitations and Workarounds
 10.1 LTM Rule Limitations
 10.2 Net Self Allow-Service Limitations
 10.3 VLAN Auto-Configuration
 10.4 SNMP User Password Limitations
 10.5 Encrypted Password Rollback Issues
 10.6 Device Discovery Limitations
 10.7 Crypto CRL/SSL-CRL Limitations
 10.8 LTM Rule Creation
 10.9 Port Representation Mismatches
 10.10 Multi-partition Configuration
 10.11 IMISH Shell Limitations
 10.12 CM Device Unicast-Address
 10.13 File Download Buffer Size
 10.14 Net/FDB Deletion
11. Advanced Configuration handling and customizing NED Settings
 11.1 Auth Partition and Route Domain Dependency:
 11.2 Dynamic Routing Protocol Dependencies:
 11.3 Sporadic Out-of-Sync Issues:
 11.4 Multi-partition Combinations:
 11.5 Single partition sync - for non-default /Common partition :
 11.6 Auto-config Handling:
 11.7 Performance Considerations

1. General

This document describes the f5-bigip NED.

  • This document describes the F5 Big-IP Network Element Driver (NED) for Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO).

  • The NED is a software component that enables NSO to manage F5 Big-IP devices, providing a set of actions and operations that can be performed on these devices.

  • The F5 Big-IP NED is designed as a generic SSH NED, which means it uses the TMSH CLI commands of the F5 Big-IP device under SSH management.

  • It will use REST API calls for operations that require it, allowing for more complex interactions with the device, but it does not rely on HTTPS for general configuration management and device interaction.

Additional README files bundled with this NED package

Common NED Features

Verified target systems

1.1 Extract the NED package

It is assumed the NED package ncs-<NSO version>-f5-bigip-<NED version>.signed.bin has already been downloaded from software.cisco.com.

In this instruction the following example settings will be used:

  • NSO version: 6.0

  • NED version: 1.0.1

  • NED package downloaded to: /tmp/ned-package-store

  1. Extract the NED package and verify its signature:

  2. In case the signature can not be verified (for instance if no internet connection), do as below instead:

  3. The result of the extraction shall be a tar.gz file with the same name as the .bin file:

1.2 Install the NED package

There are two alternative ways to install this NED package. Which one to use depends on how NSO itself is setup.

In the instructions below the following example settings will be used:

  • NSO version: 6.0

  • NED version: 1.0.1

  • NED download directory: /tmp/ned-package-store

  • NSO run time directory: ~/nso-lab-rundir

A prerequisite is to set the environment variable NSO_RUNDIR to point at the NSO run time directory:

1.2.1 Local install

This section describes how to install a NED package on a locally installed NSO (see "NSO Local Install" in the NSO Installation guide).

It is assumed the NED package has been been unpacked to a tar.gz file as described in 1.1.

  1. Untar the tar.gz file. This creates a new sub-directory named: f5-bigip-<NED major digit>.<NED minor digit>:

  2. Install the NED into NSO, using the ncs-setup tool:

  3. Open a NSO CLI session and load the new NED package like below:

Alternatively the tar.gz file can be installed directly into NSO. Then skip steps 1 and 2 and do like below instead:

Set the environment variable NED_ROOT_DIR to point at the NSO NED package:

1.2.2 System install

This section describes how to install a NED package on a system installed NSO (see "NSO System Install" in the NSO Installation Guide).

It is assumed the NED package has been been unpacked to a tar.gz file as described in 1.1.

  1. Do a NSO backup before installing the new NED package:

  2. Start a NSO CLI session and fetch the NED package:

  3. Install the NED package (add the argument replace-existing if a previous version has been loaded):

  4. Load the NED package

1.3 Configure the NED in NSO

This section describes the steps for configuring a device instance using the newly installed NED package.

  • Start a NSO CLI session:

  • Enter configuration mode:

  • Configure a new authentication group (my-group) to be used for this device:

  • Configure a new device instance (example: dev-1):

Extra Setup Warning

WARNING: Ensure localhost is resolvable and loopback addresses are defined.

  • Follow RFC 6761 section 6.3: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6761#section-6.3

  • /etc/hosts (or equivalent) should contain 127.0.0.1 and/or ::1 mapping to localhost, *.localhost, or localhost.*

IMPORTANT

1.3.1 F5-BIGIP NED is a generic SSH NED by design

  • This means the NED is using the TMSH CLI commands of F5 BIGIP device under SSH management

  • Therefore, please ensure the SSH port is available and configured for the main config section as exemplified below

  • HTTPS port may also be used in certain live status commands, but it is NOT used for general config management and device interaction.

Example:

  • Assuming SSH is open on port 22 and HTTPS on 443:

1.4 Getting Started Quick Guide

  • Finally commit the configuration

  • Verify configuration, using a sync-from.

If the sync-from was not successful, check the NED configuration again.

2. Optional debug and trace setup

It is often desirable to see details from when and how the NED interacts with the device(Example: troubleshooting)

This can be achieved by configuring NSO to generate a trace file for the NED. A trace file contains information about all interactions with the device. Messages sent and received as well as debug printouts, depending on the log level configured.

NSO creates one separate trace file for each device instance with tracing enabled. Stored in the following location:

$NSO_RUNDIR/logs/ned-f5-bigip-gen-1.0-<device name>.trace

Do as follows to enable tracing in one specific device instance in NSO:

  1. Start a NSO CLI session:

  2. Enter configuration mode:

  3. Enable trace raw:

    Alternatively, tracing can be enabled globally affecting all configured device instances:

  4. Configure the log level for printouts to the trace file:

    Alternatively the log level can be set globally affecting all configured device instances using this NED package.

The log level 'info' is used by default and the 'debug' level is the most verbose.

IMPORTANT: Tracing shall be used with caution. This feature does increase the number of IPC messages sent between the NED and NSO. In some cases this can affect the performance in NSO. Hence, tracing should normally be disabled in production systems.

An alternative method for generating printouts from the NED is to enable the Java logging mechanism. This makes the NED print log messages to common NSO Java log file.

$NSO_RUNDIR/logs/ncs-java-vm.log

Do as follows to enable Java logging in the NED

  1. Start a NSO CLI session:

  2. Enter configuration mode:

  3. Enable Java logging with level all from the NED package:

  4. Configure the NED to log to the Java logger

    Alternatively Java logging can be enabled globally affecting all configured device instances using this NED package.

IMPORTANT: Java logging does not use any IPC messages sent to NSO. Consequently, NSO performance is not affected. However, all log printouts from all log enabled devices are saved in one single file. This means that the usability is limited. Typically single device use cases etc.

SSHJ DEBUG LOGGING For issues related to the ssh connection it is often useful to enable full logging in the SSHJ ssh client. This will make SSHJ print additional log entries in $NSO_RUNDIR/logs/ncs-java-vm.log:

3. Dependencies

This NED has the following host environment dependencies:

  • Java 1.8 (NSO version < 6.2)

  • Java 17 (NSO version >= 6.2)

  • Gnu Sed

Dependencies for NED recompile:

  • Apache Ant

  • Bash

  • Gnu Sort

  • Gnu awk

  • Grep

  • Python3 (with packages: re, sys, getopt, subprocess, argparse, os, glob)

4. Sample device configuration

Sample Configuration Workflow

4.1. Enter device config mode & create object

4.2. Preview (dry-run) native commands

4.3. Commit the transaction

4.4. Check sync status

4.5. Compare configuration

Note: If no diff is shown, supported config is the same in NSO as on the device.

5. Built in live-status actions

The NED provides comprehensive support for native F5 exec commands through the device live-status interface. These actions allow you to execute various F5 Big-IP operations directly from NSO, outside the NSO config tree. Please use them cautiously as they can impact and potentially change device behavior or existing configuration in some cases. If configuration changes as a result of a live-status command, a sync-from command may be required to reconcile the device state with NSO.

Available Actions Overview

5.1 Generic Command Execution

5.1.1 any Action - TMSH Commands

  • Execute any tmsh commands on the device.

Single Command Examples:

Multiple Commands: Separate commands with ; (space-semicolon-space).

Example Output:

5.1.2 any-outside-tmsh Action - Exec Commands

  • Execute any exec commands outside tmsh mode.

Examples:

5.1.3 show Action - Show Commands

  • Execute show commands with structured output.

Single Command:

Output:

Multiple Commands:

5.2 File Operations

5.2.1 Upload File

  • Transfer files from NSO to the F5 device.

5.2.2 Download File

  • Transfer files from the F5 device to NSO.

5.2.3 Delete File

  • Remove files from the F5 device.

5.3 Certificate Management

5.3.1 Install Certificate

  • Install SSL certificates on the device.

5.4 ASM Policy Management

5.4.1 Upload Policy

  • Upload ASM security policy files.

5.4.2 Get Policies

  • List all available ASM policies.

Example output:

5.4.2.1 Policy server-technologies-task handling

Available sub-actions

Run apply-server-technologies task

  • Scope: add server technologies to the policy, by ids.

  • Pre-requisites:

    • collect and identify policy-id targeted, ex UhAjlT0xpHSO3hqzkOvoqw

  • Example run:

    Output:

Get task status

Output: http-status 200 task-id GcmCff51B8-R46hYdSvKHg status COMPLETED task-link /mgmt/tm/asm/tasks/apply-server-technologies/GcmCff51B8-R46hYdSvKHg start-time 2026-05-18T19:59:07Z end-time 2026-05-18T19:59:08Z

Delete task

Output (success):

Output (already deleted):

5.4.3 Apply Policy

  • Apply an ASM policy to the system.

5.4.4 Import Policy

  • Import ASM policy from file.

5.4.5 Export Policy

  • Export ASM policy to file.

5.4.6 Download Policy

  • Download exported ASM policy file.

5.5 Advanced Interactive Commands

5.5.1 outside-tmsh-prompts - Interactive Commands

  • Execute commands that require interactive input/prompts.

Example: Change Root Password

5.5.2 exec-rest-call - REST API Calls

  • Execute REST API calls directly against the F5 device.

Prerequisites:

  • REST credentials must be configured (see section 7.2)

  • Hostname verification may need to be disabled (see section 7.16)

5.5.2.1 Params configuration

Utilizing it is intuitive, but one must be aware of the BigIp iREST APIs, considering its particularities when using these apis. Otherwise, they're not limited in any other sense.

Using method :

Examples of callbacks, replace parameter-name-or-id with targeted info from your env to check it live:

Add a query into the mix:

live-status bigip-actions exec-rest-call url "/mgmt/tm/asm/policies?$select=id,name,fullPath,serverTechnologyReference"

live-status bigip-actions exec-rest-call url /mgmt/tm/asm/policies/UhAjlT0xpHSO3hqzkOvoqw/server-technologies

live-status bigip-actions exec-rest-call url "/mgmt/tm/asm/policies?$orderby=name+asc&$select=id,name,fullPath,partition,policy-builder,type,virtualServers"

live-status bigip-actions exec-rest-call url "/mgmt/tm/cm/traffic-group/traffic-group-1/stats"

live-status bigip-actions exec-rest-call url "/mgmt/tm/asm/policies?$select=id,name,fullPath,partition,virtualServers,enforcementMode&$skip=0&$top=1000"

live-status bigip-actions exec-rest-call url /mgmt/tm/asm/policies/policy_id?$select=caseInsensitive,id,name,fullPath

Note: The key values are for uniqueness only and are not sent to the device.

5.6 Success Indicators

Most actions return a result successful message upon completion. Monitor NSO logs for detailed execution information and error messages.

6. Built in live-status show

6.1 Live Status: show sys version

  • Command issued from NSO:

  • Device interaction (command executed on device):

Output is representative; version/build will differ per device.

7. Limitations

7.1 ltm / rule *

  • Rules in a subdirectory i.e. RuleDir/aRule are not shown in NSO.

  • This is because the F5 BIG-IP device doesn't list those rules when executing list ltm rule in tmsh.

7.2 net / self / * / allow-service all

  • Issuing modify net self * { allow-service all } on the device will automatically replace all previous values of allow-service with all. This automatic replacement is not supported in the NED. Instead, first delete all the existing allow-service values and then add all.

Example (set to all):

  • If you want to add other values to allow-service when the value is all then first delete the all value and then add the other values.

Example (replace with specific services):

7.3 net / vlan *

  • When creating a new /net/vlan object the device could automatically add the VLAN's name in /net/stp/vlans and /net/route-domain/vlans. To avoid a compare-config diff the VLAN's name must be added to /net/stp/vlans and /net/route-domain/vlans from the NED as well.

  • When deleting a /net/vlan object the device could automatically delete the VLAN's name from /net/stp/vlans and /net/route-domain/vlans. To avoid a compare-config diff the VLAN's name must be deleted from those lists by the NED as well.

Example 1 (add):

Example 2 (delete):

7.4 Custom NED-setting file-download-buffer-size

  • When downloading a file through the live-status call:

Details:

  • Default buffer size is 1 if the NED-setting file-download-buffer-size has not been set (slowest but most reliable for md5sum).

  • Set buffer size:

  • Larger values increase speed but also probability of md5 mismatch. NED retries up to 5 times.

  • Testing suggests values >32 significantly raise risk of re-downloads.

7.5 compare-config diffs on sys snmp users -password

  • The values below can only be set on the device, not listed:

    • sys snmp users * auth-password

    • sys snmp users * privacy-password

So if you configure these values from the NED there will be a compare-config diff.

  • The values below can both be set and listed on the device:

    • sys snmp users * auth-password-encrypted

    • sys snmp users * privacy-password-encrypted

    However, every time you list these values they will change. This will lead to a compare-config diff.

    These compare-config diffs are handled in NSO 4.4 and above. For versions below 4.4 a sync-from is recommended to solve the compare-config diffs.

7.6 Encrypted-password rollback

  • The configuration /sys/snmp/users have two values which return different values every time they are listed.

    • /sys/snmp/users/auth-password-encrypted

    • /sys/snmp/users/privacy-password-encrypted

  • When doing a rollback from the deletion of a /sys/snmp/user that

    • /sys/snmp/user/ will be created created by the NED.

    • The NED will send the creation command such as:

    • Sometime the device will accept the roll-back command and the deletion roll-back is successful.

    • Other times the device interprets random space and backspace characters. In that case the rollback fails.

      • When that happens the error message below will be printed: Rollback failed. See README "Encrypted-password rollback" for details: edit error

      • This is a known issue and happens sporadically on the device side.

7.7 Auto-config handling

  • Auto-config occurs when the device automatically creates/modifies/deletes configuration. This usually leads to a compare-config issue. One way to solve it is to create/modify/delete the corresponding config in same transaction/commit.

    Example 1 - compare-config issue due to auto-config:

    Example 2 - creating the corresponding auto-config on the NED solves the compare-config issue

7.8.1 Device discovery in /cm/trust-domain

  • Devices can be added to /cm/trust-domain in two ways.

    • One way is to add a device in /cm/device, then add that device in /cm/trust-domain. This is the only way supported by the NED.

    • Another way is to specify a /cm/trust-domain device by IP:

      modify /cm trust-domain <trust-domain-name> ca-devices add { <ip> } name <name> ...

      • The Big-ip device then performs device discovery with that IP, and this new device is added under /cm/device, and other configuration nodes are modified out-of-band as well.

      • In other words, using device discovery in /cm/trust-domain causes auto-config. If the device discovery syntax were to be implemented, user would still have to configure the resulting auto-config, i.e. in the way that's already supported, hence such an implementation would be superfluous.

      • If user still wants to use device discovery, live-status can be used.

7.8.2 False 'in-sync' result when check-sync after device discovery

  • The NED uses a hash of configsync.localconfigtime to determine if CDB is in sync with a device. However, the configsync.localconfigtime value doesn't change after device discovery (as described in section 8.1), which leads to check-sync reporting "in-sync" after device discovery, even though compare-config would report a diff.

7.9 sys crypto crl / sys file ssl-crl

7.9.1. Provided that the crl is stored in the device, issue an install command from the NED to install the crl test-crl.pem

Example:

7.9.2 Issue a sync-from to fetch the configuration for:

Example:

7.9.3 Delete both sys crypto crl test-1 & sys file ssl-crl test-1 from the NED

Example command:

  • The NED will only send delete /sys file ssl-crl "test-1" { }

    since both sys crypto crl test-1 & sys file ssl-crl test-1 will be deleted by the device once it receives delete /sys file ssl-crl "test-1" { }

7.10 Creating /ltm rule

  • Use semicolon ; for separating lines.

  • Escape special characters and escape sequences (e.g. ", $, \n, \r becomes \", \\$, \\n, \\r).

  • Multiline mode works for some NSO versions (e.g. 4.7.4, 5.2.0.3). If using a version where it does not work correctly, default back to escaping and sending it on one line as shown in example 2 below.

7.10.1. Example: unescaped ltm rule and output:

Example command:

  • will yield this on the device:

7.10.2. Example: escaped ltm rule and output:

Example command:

7.11 Port representation - alphabetical or numerical

  • The device can represent ports numerically or alphabetically (e.g. 443 or https).

    • If there is a representation mismatch between the NED and the device a compare-config diff will appear.

    • To solve it, the representation must be same in both the NED and the device.

    • The below config can configure the port representation:

      • 1. sys db bigpipe.displayservicenames value true | false

      • 2. cli global-settings service name | number

      Updating pt 1. will automatically update 2. and vice versa.

Example: Configure the device to show numerical port values

7.12 Writing and reading to all partitions with one device instance

7.12.1. To enable the reading of all partitions:

  • See README-ned-settings.md Fetching config from all partitions:

  • It may also be necessary to exclude specific paths from getting the partition name as a prefix.

7.12.2. Writing to other partitions beside the standard partition /Common:

  • To create/modify/delete config which resides in a partition other than the standard partition /Common, the partition name needs to be added before the config name. To be consistent, when working with several partitions with one device instance always specify the partition name before the config name.

Example:

7.12.3. The below config has been tested to be created/modified/deleted on a partition beside the /Common partition on the NED:

Nodes:

7.13 ned-id change

  • From NED version 3.6, we have changed ned-id from bigip:f5-bigip to bigip-id:f5-bigip, due to NEDCOM internal dependencies for this change. NED will upgrade existing device ned-id's to new ned-ids during package upgrade.

    • However to add new device, user need to use new ned-id bigip-id:f5-bigip.

    XML example:

7.14 Configuring ltm/profile/http/encrypt-cookies

  • From NED version 3.8, the modelling for this leaf is changed.

  • To configure this leaf, the keyword "cookie" is required between encrypt-cookies and the cookie name.

  • To configure the leaf in version 3.8 and onwards, use the below syntax: ncs# devices device <bigip-device> config ltm profile http <http-name> encrypt-cookies cookie <cookie-name>

7.15 Removal of set-hooks

  • The following set-hooks has been removed:

7.15.1. /ltm/virtual/destination -> tailf:callpoint ltm-virtual-mask-hook { tailf:set-hook node; }

  • The difference now is that if /ltm/virtual/destination is set then /ltm/virtual/mask needs to be set as well, if needed.

7.15.2 /ltm/virtual/ip-protocol -> tailf:callpoint ltm-virtual-hook { tailf:transaction-hook node; }

  • The difference now is that if

    is set then

    needs to be set as well, if needed.

7.16 net/* and security/firewall/* mirroring auto config

  • Some lists in these nodes have a mirroring style of auto config.

  • In devices which have this present, the workaround to not get out of sync with the device is to use the ned-setting "exclude-load-config", see README-ned-settings.md under exclude-load-config for details

Example:

7.17 Deleting net/fdb and subnodes

Dynamic behavior

  • The NED will not issue a delete command for net/fdb, since it is not possible on the device.

    • Since the subnode net/fdb/records can store a reference to net/vlan/interface, it has to be possible to delete this reference to enable the deletion of that net/vlan.

      • This is why the NED will do a check each time a delete net fdb vlan X is issued. If X has an instance of records, the command belpw will be sent to the device:

        • modify /net fdb vlan X { records none }

7.18 Enabling and using the IMI shell (imish)

  • Configuring the device using imish can be enabled with the ned-setting

    ned-settings f5-bigip imish use-imish

  • After this has been set to 'true', user should do a sync-from. At this point, user can start using configuration under imish.

  • Note that by enabling the config under /imish the following config sections will be disabled on the NED:

  • The NED uses run /util imish -r <id> to enter imish. The id corresponds to a /net/route-domain with dynamic routing enabled, i.e. with /net/route-domain/routing-protocol containing the value "BGP", and the config entered when that id was specified "belongs" to that id. Therefore, imish is modeled as a Yang list.

  • When enabling dynamic routing in a /net/route-domain, user must also create an imish instance corresponding to the id of that route-domain.

    • For example, suppose we have already configured a /net/route-domain with id 1. Then when we want to enable dynamic routing, we must also create imish 1:

    • The imish instance is created in the CDB but is not sent to device, since it's not actual config.

    • Conversely, when disabling dynamic routing for a /net/route-domain, the corresponding imish instance must also be deleted.

    • If this is not done, there will be a config diff.

  • When enabling dynamic routing and configuring imish in the same transaction (commit), device may complain that Protocol daemon is not running, and imish config is not accepted.

    To avoid this, a delay may be necessary.

    This delay can be controlled with the ned-setting: ned-settings f5-bigip imish delay-before-imish

    • NOTE: To not be confused with delay-before-send; different scopes!

    • By default this value is 10000 milliseconds (10 seconds).

7.19 Configuring cm/device/unicast-address

7.20 ltm / persistence / cookie / cookie-encryption-passphrase

  • THIS IS A BEST EFFORT attempt to provide a workaround to this F5 behavior limitation;

  • The ltm persistence cookie leaf cookie-encryption-passphrase is encrypted by the device immediately after being set.

  • Therefore it cannot be managed properly, breaking idempotency by default.

  • Visibility Constraint: The plaintext passphrase value can only be viewed in NSO at creation/modification time (when committing the configuration). After the first sync-from, the device returns only the encrypted value, which is not decryptable, hence NSO fills in with placeholders to easily identify that

  • Impact on compare-config: After the initial commit, if we would keep the device's plaintext passphrase in the CDB config, it will never match device list/show TMSH outputs, as they will show only the encrypted value, causing persistent compare-config diffs. Hence we will mark the leaf ignorable at compare-config in the schema to maintain the CDB integrity. In addition to that, we will use a static placeholder to maintain the config CDB with an uniform value at each sync-from without the proper complete previously stored context.

  • Best Practice:

    1. When setting cookie-encryption-passphrase, do so explicitly from NSO (do not set directly on device);

      • It would best work if the day0 config would be a sync-from with a cookie-encryption-passphrase set to none on the device side

      • This way in the eventuality of a rollback, NSO would be able to clean it and bring it to the day0 state, that is without any cookie-encryption-passphrase set;

      • Any subsequent post sync-from creation/update would be cached and stored in the persistent Operational data for future transactions handling;

      • If there is any leftover or migration or partition configuration change of context, use the dedicated ned setting to completely clean the operational cdb at the next sync-from

    2. Capture and securely store the plaintext passphrase outside NSO if recovery is needed or adapt the service provisioning to always default to some Day 0 predefined passphrase that should be applied at reconcile/rollback if possible

    3. NED stores the last-known passphrase in operational CDB

    • check top level outside NSO CLI config mode by running: show operational-data bigip-oper-data ltm persistence cookie) for reference

  • Example:

7.20.1 Day 0: Understanding a potential day0 context for this approach : sync-from

  • Running a sync-from, will bring in the encrypted values contexts into the Operational CDB only and default them to uniform placeholder not-defined-by-ned placeholder in the Config CDB:

  • NSO will store in the operational CDB last commited value; it can be seen outside NCS cli config mode at:

  • Placeholder default value: not-defined-by-ned and context around it:

  • Meaning: "NSO does not currently know the plaintext for this cookie passphrase or cannot safely apply in the current context."

  • Where it appears:

    • In config CDB whenever we parse matching plaintext from the device and compare it to the available information previously stored in oper CDB (fresh device, OOB change detected, first sync-from after clean-operational-cdb-on-sync-from etc.)

    • Never on the device. Whenever this value would be automatically generated by NSO as a result of a transaction failure, rollback or any other similar situation, it would be discarded and ignored by the NED and treated as a no-op. It will never be pushed to the device.

  • Why not just leave the leaf empty or use the raw encrypted value from the device:

    • Compare-config and commit/dry run etc are diff-based; a NULL leaf on one side and any value on the other creates spurious diffs on every sync-from.

    • Using the raw device encrypted value would not make sense either as we cannot maintain it potential rollback /failure scenarios either

    • tailf:ned-ignore-compare-config is set on this leaf so the placeholder is ignored during compare-config, but the placeholder would provide a state sense that can be used to decide the next steps.

    • Setting the same plaintext changes encrypted value on the device even if the plaintext value is the same, so this is the major detail we will leverage when assessing the integrity of the plain text-encrypted pair check from Operational CDB store if available.

7.20.2 Day 1: Create/set the persistence cookie passphrase and commit transaction in NSO:

  • The ideal Day0 scenario to start with would be, as mentioned above meeting the following conditions:

    • Initial cookie-encryption-passphrase is set to none on the F5 device if we target existing cookies

    • Entire cookie-encryption-passphrase will be created from NSO if we target new cookies;

  • Let's take a not so ideal Day0 scenario where we have a predefined cookie-encryption-passphrase:

    • We will have value in the Config CDB

  • Day1:

    • With this in mind, updating cookie-encryption-passphrase and creating a new cookie would flow as depicted below:

      • Update one existing cookie's passphrase and create a new cookie with a passphrase.

      • commit dry-run at the CLI layer shows both operations in the CDB diff, replacing the placeholder for cookie-2 and creating cookie-3:

  • The native diff shows the two TMSH commands that will actually be sent.

  • After commit + sync-from, oper CDB reflects the paired plaintext vs encrypted state for both touched cookies.

  • The other three cookies stayed on the placeholder side of the CDB and their oper entries only carry the device-observed passphrase-encrypted + last-encrypted-show-time:

Operational CDB Columns description:

  • PASSPHRASE — NSO-owned plaintext for cookies that went through an NSO commit. Empty for cookies NSO never wrote.

  • PASSPHRASE ENCRYPTED — the last $M$… the NED observed on the device; refreshed on every sync-from and every post-commit fetch.

  • LAST UPDATE TIMESTAMP — set together with plaintext at commit time. Answers "when did NSO last write this plaintext?".

  • LAST ENCRYPTED SHOW TIME — moves forward on every sync-from and every post-commit fetch. Answers "when did the NED last see this cookie's $M$?".

7.20.3 Day 2 — rollback of the day 1 transaction

  • Reversing the day 1 commit reintroduces the pre-modify state, which is:

    • /automation/test-cookie-2 as placeholder > will be dropped and handled as no-op

    • /automation/test-cookie-3 entirely deleted > will be properly processed

  • Config-level dry-run: NSO sees the full symmetric diff, including the reintroduced placeholder:

  • Two reverse ops are computed by NSO:

    • VALUE_SET on /automation/test-cookie-2 back to not-defined-by-ned

      • intercepted by NED, converted to a no-op, with the plaintext + timestamp wiped from oper CDB.

      • Nothing is sent to the device because the NED cannot restore a plaintext it never had.

      • F5 device will basically keep Updated-pass-cookie2 value after this transaction

    • DELETED on /automation/test-cookie-3

      • removes the cookie from the device and drops the whole oper entry

  • Native-level dry-run confirms only the delete makes it to the device:

  • Post-rollback config CDB — cookie-2 is back on the placeholder, cookie-3 is gone.

    • This is the current intended NSO/CDB view ad we can't guarantee the pre-modify plaintext, so we mark it as unknown:

  • Post-rollback oper CDB state: — cookie-3 is gone (the DELETE executed successfully).

    • Cookie-2 kept its passphrase-encrypted snapshot (refreshed to whatever the device still has after the no-op) but plaintext and last-update-timestamp are cleaned:

  • This is expected current behavior; the diff reflects the device's encryption and cannot be resolved without a mean to decrypt the passphrase.

  • Operational CDB passphrase store comes as a helper

IMPORTANT NOTE: For existing cookies, if the day0 for the impacted cookies would contain all cookies with none default values for cookie-encryption-passphrase, the rollback would be fully applyable. Hence the recommendation to either run live-status commands to set them to none or templatize the creation of the cookies with no explicit cookie-encryption-passphrase applied and construct from there

8. How to report NED issues and feature requests

Issues like bugs and errors shall always be reported to the Cisco NSO NED team through the Cisco Support channel:

The following information is required for the Cisco NSO NED team to be able to investigate an issue:

Do as follows to gather the necessary information needed for your device, here named 'dev-1':

  1. Enable full debug logging in the NED

  2. Configure the NSO to generate a raw trace file from the NED

  3. If the NED already had trace enabled, clear it in order to submit only relevant information

    Do as follows for NSO 6.4 or newer:

    Do as follows for older NSO versions:

  4. Run a compare-config to populate the trace with initial device config

  5. Reproduce the found issue using ncs_cli or your NSO service. Write down each necessary step in a reproduction report.

  6. Gather the reproduction report and a copy of the raw trace file containing data recorded when the issue happened.

  7. Contact the Cisco support and request to open a case. Provide the gathered files together with access details for a device that can be used by the Cisco NSO NED when investigating the issue.

Requests for new features and extensions of the NED are handled by the Cisco NSO NED team when applicable. Such requests shall also go through the Cisco support channel.

The following information is required for feature requests and extensions:

  1. A detailed use case description, with details like:

    • Data of interest

    • The kind of operations to be used on the data. Like: 'read', 'create', 'update', 'delete' and the order of the operation

    • Device APIs involved in the operations (For example: REST URLs and payloads)

    • Device documentation describing the operations involved

  2. Run sync-from # devices device dev-1 sync-from (if relevant)

  3. Attach the raw trace to the ticket (if relevant)

  4. Access to a device that can be used by the Cisco NSO NED team for testing and verification of the new feature. This usually means that both read and write permissions are required. Pseudo access via tools like Webex, Zoom etc is not acceptable. However, it is ok with access through VPNs, jump servers etc.

9. How to rebuild a NED

To rebuild the NED do as follows:

When the NED has been successfully rebuilt, it is necessary to reload the package into NSO.

10. Limitations and Workarounds

10.1 LTM Rule Limitations

10.2 Net Self Allow-Service Limitations

10.3 VLAN Auto-Configuration

10.4 SNMP User Password Limitations

10.5 Encrypted Password Rollback Issues

10.6 Device Discovery Limitations

10.7 Crypto CRL/SSL-CRL Limitations

10.8 LTM Rule Creation

10.9 Port Representation Mismatches

10.10 Multi-partition Configuration

10.11 IMISH Shell Limitations

10.12 CM Device Unicast-Address

10.13 File Download Buffer Size

10.14 Net/FDB Deletion

11. Advanced Configuration handling and customizing NED Settings

11.1 Auth Partition and Route Domain Dependency:

11.2 Dynamic Routing Protocol Dependencies:

11.3 Sporadic Out-of-Sync Issues:

11.4 Multi-partition Combinations:

11.5 Single partition sync - for non-default /Common partition :

11.6 Auto-config Handling:

11.7. Performance Considerations

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